Us and Them

Simon Baron-Cohen, a prom­in­ent aut­ism research­er, writes in the New Scientist about his research being mis­rep­res­en­ted by a news­pa­per:

So how did The Guardian get it so wrong? First, because the head­line writers went bey­ond the data to cre­ate a simple, bite-size but inac­cur­ate mes­sage. Second, because they fused two issues that should have been kept sep­ar­ate: the study itself, on pren­at­al hor­mon­al effects in chil­dren devel­op­ing typ­ic­ally; and the issue of aut­ism screen­ing.